Scorekeeping issues

[SMEngmann]

Let's see we have an official going off on a fan, making a bad 3 seconds call and then chasing a coach out of the building after being called a moron, and then in another game (I hope it was another game....) the scorebook goes AWOL and the scorekeeper and the home team are making up fouls on the visiting. Sounds like you watch, or your kid plays in one screwed up middle school league

At this point I think the original poster is being disingenuous with these situations and is here just to vent about perceived slights that happened to his team. Sure this situation mentioned in this thread could have happened, but I don't see why anyone would intentionally distort the fouls and foul out the best player on a middle school team. The only recourse is to keep your own book. There are a lot of sleazy people in middle school basketball (especially on the coaching side), but I can't imagine seeing blatant cheating like this in what is essentially a meaningless game, but if you're worried about it, keep your own book.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by SMEngmann

There are a lot of sleazy people in middle school basketball (especially on the coaching side)

There's a lot of 'em in the stands too. They're called fans.

[Bobby]

Some of the newer books I've seen don't even have a team foul or possession space on them. It's hard to work a game when you can't even do so, so I've had at least one case where the official didn't even keep the official book available for us in one game that I had to get my flash drive, load the modified FIBA scoresheet (I used MS Word to create a FIBA-style scoresheet, except I modified it for 7/10 team fouls in a half and possession arrow boxes), and make copies just to play the game. Hank Nichols would probably be the one to ask how to do a FIBA book.

What I've done to rectify the lack of a team foul counter on the book is adopt FIBA procedure and take the portable scoreboards used for the youth side court games and use it to count fouls (FIBA regulations require a counter on the table to count team fouls). The referees have found it easier to play that way, but when I'm out of town on business, the other scorer doesn't use it, and referees complain when they don't use the counter.